Music Center SPOTLIGHT Award - Visual Arts
The Music Center Spotlight Awards program was established in 1988 to provide meaningful recognition, encouragement, and advancement opportunities to high school performing and visual artists in Southern California. Students of all talent levels are encouraged to participate in order to strengthen audition and performance skills. Now in its twenty-second year, the program boasts many highly successful alumni. More importantly, thousands of students of all levels of ability have benefited from this unique learning experience.
The visual arts categories are photography and two-dimensional art. The preliminary round of judging will take place in January. Semifinal auditions and master classes will be held from January – February.
Twelve finalists will be selected in performing arts, two from each category, to perform at the Music Center’s Ahmanson Theatre in April. The four finalists in visual arts, two from each category, will also be presented that evening.
Scholarships for Visual Arts:
- First Grand Prize - $5,000 scholarship
- Second Grand Prize - $4,000 scholarship
- Honorable mentions - $250 scholarship
- Semifinalists receive a $500 scholarship for summer art classes
- Semifinal artwork is hung at a gallery for an awards reception and exhibition
- Semifinalists receive a $100 scholarship and a letter evaluating their portfolios
- All participants are invited to free art workshops led by leading professionals and a museum tour
- All participants receive a certificate
If you are a first time applicant, we recommend that you read through the “How to Apply for First Time Applicants” page before beginning your application. Once you are prepared to submit your application, please allow yourself at least 20 minutes to complete the process. You may want to print the instructions to guide you through the process.
If you have applied in previous years but would like to be reminded on how to submit your application, please read through the “How to Apply for Returning Students” before logging into the system.
Before you log in and apply, please read the Rules and Category section for general program rules as well as specific category guidelines and repertoire requirements.
This year's application will be available August 15th. For complete details, please visit our website.